Mezzoni the Brigand — page 83: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MEZZONI THE BRIGAND. 15. whom she cared not the least in the way of affection. It was useless to disguise the fact. No real domestic tie bound them to each other. » She had been fascinated by the handsome face and person of Alberto Corrello. The stories of his duels, and his extravagance at play, also, to her ro- mantic nature, proved a singular attraction. She remembered, too, that they had been children to- gether, and had whispered love tales into each other’s ears; and she remembered also, that but for his presumed poverty in those days he might have been her husband. All these thoughts had been brooded upon until in one mad moment she had adopted a reckless plan to surprise him within his own palace, as we have described. We will not attempt to analyze the reason of Al- berto’s coolness toward the Signora Amadeo. So daring a man was not deferred from an intimacy by any such drawback as fear of personal harm, and we may suppose that he was in some degree gov- erned by a lingering sense of honor. Possibly there came before his mind’s eye, also, the recollection of that past to which she had referred. As we shall have occasion to see before the close of the present chapter, this notorious gambler, this degenerate scion of a once noble house, this reckless duelist, was not entirely selfish and without a sense of honor left. He was, let his accumulated sins be what they might, still capable of truly chivalrous conduct. Thus, whatever baseness may control the human instincts at times, there will still remain upon the most abandoned soul the half-effaced image of its Maker. The Count Amadeo thought that he discovered something very familiar to him in the form and Eomicbooks ‘com